City Council Reports

Apr 10, 2015 01:30PM
● By City Journals Staff

RIVERTON CITY COUNCIL

By Paul Wayman, Riverton City Council

We are a quarter of the way through Riverton’s 150th year celebration of “good times”. Many more community events are planned and will continue in future years. This is because of the city’s well-thought-out recreation programs for everyone’s enjoyment.

Food is what makes celebrating a lot of fun, and what better way than a cookbook to commemorate Riverton City’s 150th year of the settlers’ arrival. The Riverton City cookbook, “Taste of Tradition Celebrating 150 years of Riverton Heritage”, is being sold at cost for just $10. You can buy your copy from Riverton city offices at the utility billing desk or the Parks and Recreation department, or at Petersons Fresh Market. This is a high quality, hard bound 3 ring binder cookbook with your neighbors’ 658 recipes.

Many of the early settlers’ brought their heirloom family recipes with them when they settled here. These recipes have been used, changed and adapted through the years, but are still a distinct part of who we are in Riverton. The cookbook has a wonderful collection of recipes, from these vintage family treasures to new trendy ones, using modern ingredients that our grandmothers had never heard of. My wife, Linda, and I acted as co-chairs on the cookbook committee. We would like to give a special thank you to all the Riverton citizens past and present whose recipes appear in the cookbook.

We would like to send a huge thank you to the committee which made all of this possible. Promoting the cookbook at Riverton events, editing, proofing and entering recipes was no easy task, and many hours were contributed to make this a wonderful book.

Also a big thank you to Langford Lloyd, president of the Riverton Historical Society, for contributing the Riverton history and the great pictures for the dividers and introductory pages. These are vintage pictures of Riverton that he took in the 1980s.

Some of the future events that will happen in the next few months are Neighborhood Clean-up Day, an Arbor Day tree-planting seminar, a Riverton Heritage Tour at the cemetery, Memorial Day Salute, the Riverton Arts Council presentation of “Footloose”, the new park grand opening on June 22nd, and Riverton Town Days in July.

A Radon Awareness open house will be in November of this year, sponsored by Riverton Hospital, Riverton City and the State of Utah. One third of the houses in Utah have dangerous levels of radon. The best time to test for radon problems in a home is in the winter. To find out more, go to http://radon.utah.gov.

The complete 2015 calendar that includes Riverton City’s 150 Days of Celebration is available online at www.rivertoncity.com. Simply follow the Parks & Recreation link and scroll down to the 2015 Calendar icon.

BLUFFDALE CITY COUNCIL

By Ty Nielsen, City Council Member

Hello Bluffdale,

The past few years Bluffdale has grown a lot. Most of the growth has been on the east side. This growth has helped the rest of the city to have better roads. There are some great people that are moving into Bluffdale to add some good talent, and we just need to make sure to make them feel as welcome as we have all been made to feel as we have moved in.

I can’t help but mention Teddy Bell. Teddy has been the city recorder for as long as I can recall: 25 years to be exact. I have since met Connie Rice, who was the first city recorder for Bluffdale. But from my recollection it has always been Teddy. Each individual citizen in Bluffdale is like a brick in the wall of the structure that is Bluffdale; Teddy has been the mortar that has held us together. It has always amazed me how Teddy can be to so many meetings with so many interesting topics, and can stay so quiet. She reminds me of the statesman who does not talk much, but when he does it is profound. When I was young my dad used to say to me, “It’s better to be quiet and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.” It is no doubt that Teddy was well aware of this counsel.

We have a great council that works well together. We don’t always see eye to eye, which I think is good, because I think we then see a bigger picture. But in the end we still have unity.

I have had an opportunity to go to Portland, Oregon and Tampa, Florida this year. I had never been to Oregon and it was beautiful: a lot more agricultural areas than I thought, but beautifully green. Florida of course was beautiful. I have been to Florida before, but it’s been 33 years. Florida has grown tremendously and it was almost unrecognizable for me. When I got back to Bluffdale, it was so nice to come back to our little place, our little haven.

I would encourage you to become involved with the city. Whether that means that you run for one of the positions on the city council, or if that means that you help out with the Old West Days. There many opportunities to be a part of the community. I have really enjoyed my opportunity so far. I have gotten to know so many of you people who make up the wonderful Bluffdale in which we live.

I can’t wait until all the roads are completed. I’m glad that we got the type of overpass that we did for Bangerter Highway. I certainly did not want a roundabout or those continuous flow intersections. It will be nice when 13th West is widened so that it will be a little bit safer for us to travel on.

HERRIMAN CITY COUNCIL

By Coralee Wessman-Moser, Herriman City Council

Where were you in 1997? If you were at the movies, you probably paid $4.25 for your ticket; if you bought your first home, you paid a median price of $117,600. This year, the cost of our movie ticket has more than doubled to $9.25, and that home price increased 44 percent to $169,000. Although some transportation material costs have increased as much as 300 percent over the last decade, citizens have paid the same 24.5 cents per gallon in gasoline tax as in 1997, making it worth just 14.7 cents of the same buying power today. This has led to a significant funding shortfall for Herriman City, Salt Lake County and the state of Utah.

The Utah State Legislature recently completed the regular 2015 session. Among many hot topics, transportation was a key focus for your Herriman City leaders. We believe a quality transportation system is vital to our residents, yet as a city, county and state, we haven’t been able to keep up with our maintenance or growth needs. In joining the Utah Transportation Coalition, we advocated for transportation investment and long-term funding solutions. We commend the state legislature for their efforts and now encourage residents to familiarize themselves with the issues.

Herriman City today lacks the funds needed for transportation infrastructure, but we’re not alone. In Utah, city and county governments have only one-third to one-half the funds needed for transportation infrastructure, and we know the need over the next 30 years will greatly increase. Utah’s Unified 2040 Transportation Plan considers population growth and transportation system needs through 2040. Our population is projected to double by 2040; thus, twice as many people will be on the roads, and Utah’s vehicle miles traveled will increase 80 percent. This will result in a $26.7 billion gap in funding.

The legislature made some changes to address the transportation funding gap. They included a conversion of the gasoline tax from a per-gallon cost to percentage effective January 1, 2016. This is likely to result in an initial increase of about 5 cents per gallon. Recognizing this was not enough to resolve the existing funding deficit, the legislature also added a tool for local communities to address their needs. The voters may authorize the county to add a 0.25 percent general sales tax for transportation.

While I agree no tax increase is popular, I would encourage voters to consider why it may be wise to authorize the increase, should Salt Lake County place this measure on the ballot. Preventative maintenance and proactive action on transportation needs is more cost effective than delay. Delay costs taxpayers more in the long run! For every dollar we spend today on maintenance efforts such as slurry or chip seals for our roads, we save ten dollars later in reconstruction costs. Similarly, road projects take years to complete; we should fund and construct roads to coincide with population growth, proactively avoiding gridlock and excessive idling and air-polluting time.

As your city leaders, we will continue to maximize your precious tax dollars by prioritizing and investing in meaningful transportation projects. We will do our best to maintain the ease of transportation we have in Herriman, recognizing it contributes to your quality of life.